The Real Reason Leaders Can't Switch Off

Last week, a Linked in post by Aime Ayrehart calling out the CEO of Marks & Spencer hit one million views in days. Speaking at the Business Leader Summit in Westminster, Stuart Machin had said, plainly, that he doesn't like leaders who go on holiday and completely switch off, and that he doesn't like "all of this talk about work/life balance." A workplace expert called it workplace abuse. The comment thread became a referendum on burnout culture, psychological safety, and what leadership actually requires.

Fierce debate. Lots of opinions. And almost no one asked the more interesting question: Why is Machin preaching staying always-on?

The Organizational Relevance

Now, sure, Stuart Machin is leading a real turnaround. High-stakes leadership at scale requires commitment that doesn't always respect weekends. Any leader who's done it knows this. Ignoring it is foolish.

But here's the thing: There's a meaningful difference between dedication and compulsion. And when a CEO holds up his inability to switch off as the mark of real leadership, when constant availability becomes the cultural benchmark, something happens that has nothing to do with dedication.

The message cascades. Into every direct report. Every team meeting. Every manager who now feels they have to appear online at 10pm even when they're running on fumes. Switching off doesn't just feel impolite. It starts to feel like a performance review risk.

We've all been there.

The Compound Interest of "Always On"

An always-on culture is a tax on your organization. And like any tax left unpaid, the bill compounds.

Every modeled sleeplessness accrues interest. Every late-night Slack message accrues interest. Every leader who quietly counts their missed vacations as a virtue accrues interest. Until the bill comes due—in turnover, in burnout, in a team that has learned to optimize for showing commitment rather than being effective. Those are not the same thing.

The research is consistent on this: Leader behavior doesn't stay at the top. It diffuses through every layer of the organization. When psychological safety is low, when rest feels like risk, people make their decisions based on what looks right, not what is right. They stop bringing the full weight of their judgment because they're already spent.

Think about it. If a leader is modeling constant availability as the cost of earning your place, why would anyone below them believe they're allowed to think differently?

Sound familiar?

The Pattern Isn't Just at the Top

This isn't a CEO problem. It's a pattern that repeats at every level of every organization that's running hot.

The middle manager who books calls through lunch not because they're needed but because they're afraid of appearing insufficiently committed. The director who responds to non-urgent messages at 11pm, not to move the work forward but to stay visible. The team lead who hasn't taken a real vacation in three years and quietly calls it dedication.

Individually, each of these behaviors looks like conscientiousness. Together, they are culture drift: slow, invisible, and rarely named until the damage is already done. No policy created it. No memo spread it. It cascaded from the top, one modeled behavior at a time.

Why Smart, Hardworking Leaders Can't Slow Down - And What It Means

"Just model better boundaries." "Implement a no-email-after-8pm policy." These are the usual answers.

But if it were that simple, it would already be done. There's also a cultural layer worth naming. We've built an entire leadership archetype around the idea that real strength means never stopping, never asking for help, never stepping away. I call it the myth of the unshakable leader, and the always-on CEO is its most visible expression. Individual hooks keep leaders stuck. The reward system around them makes it worse.

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Dismissing the inability to switch off as a discipline problem misses what's actually happening. Something is driving it. In my work with executives, the leaders who are genuinely incapable of disconnecting, who check their phones at midnight not because anything is urgent but because the alternative is unbearable, are almost always caught in a small set of patterns.

I call them hooks: the hidden emotional drivers underneath the visible behavior. The behavior makes sense when you understand what it's protecting. The problem is that it no longer serves the person, the team, or the organization.

These are three very common hooks present in always-on leaders:

1. Identity fusion. For many high-achieving leaders, the role isn't just what they do, it's who they are. The moment the laptop closes, something uncomfortable surfaces: Wthout this, who am I? The work has become the self, and removing it, even temporarily, triggers something akin to disappearing. This isn't laziness or poor time management. It's an identity built entirely around productivity that hasn't been examined in years, or ever.

2. Control anxiety. Some leaders stay available not because they need to act, but because not knowing what's happening is unbearable. This often traces back to early environments in which things did fall apart when no one was watching, in which vigilance was the only safety. The pattern made complete sense then (if the world isn't safe, then you have to be in control, or you're not safe). The problem is that it's still running the show now, decades later, in a boardroom it was never designed for.

3. Worth equals output. Many leaders were raised in homes where love was conditional on achievement. Rest was suspect, and productivity was proof of value. That script doesn't dissolve when you get promoted. It gets dressed in professional language. "I care about outcomes." "I'm committed." And that may be true. But underneath it, there's often a much older belief: If I stop producing, I stop mattering.

The behavior makes sense when you trace it back. The problem is that it doesn't serve anyone—not the leader, not the team, not the next performance cycle.

What to Do Instead

Not white-knuckling your way through a forced vacation. Not installing app timers. Those are surface solutions to a hooks-level problem.

1. Get curious about what rest activates. The next time you feel the pull to check your phone on a Sunday evening when nothing is actually urgent, don't just resist it. Ask: What am I afraid of missing? What's the story I'm telling myself about what might happen if I don't do this? What discomfort am I managing by responding? The answer is a direct pointer to the hook. Write it down. One word is enough to start.

2. Separate identity from role, deliberately. Schedule one hour per day with zero professional association. A walk, a physical practice, time with your kids when the phone stays in another room. The goal isn't balance. It's evidence, evidence that you exist, and matter, outside the role. You don't have to do it perfectly, but you have to do it.

3. Model what you actually want. The single most powerful culture intervention available to any leader is to model the ideal behavior. Taking care of yourself while also being responsible and responsive is true modeling. One email that waits until Monday. One blocked afternoon that holds. People are watching. Culture shifts by modeling, not by mandate.

Remember This

"Always on" isn't real leadership. It's often anxiety with a plush corner office.

If a leader models escaping internal discomfort, that hidden truth reverberates throughout the organization. If rest feels unsafe for you, your organization, is going to feel unsafe.

So go ahead, be daring and brave: Find the hook beneath your constant availability. Addressing it won't make you less of a leader. It will make you a better one.

Which of the three hooks above do you recognize in yourself, or in your culture?